After recently hearing the news that Apple could possibly close down
the iTunes music store due to royalty hikes many people began to weep.
On Thursday, The Copyright Royalty Board decided to not raise the
online royalty rates for song publishers. This royalty hike would have
definately taken a nice chunk out of Apples profit and even then Apple
is only just making it for the iTunes Music Store.
This comes at a time when the economy is going down and this must me a
saving grace for Apple, because if Apple had to raise there rates at
this time it could have meant the death of iTunes.
“It’s gamesmanship,” says Aram Sinnreich, a music-industry analyst.
“Apple doesn’t make its money from selling iTunes songs, and it’s a
break-even business anyway. Let’s say Apple agreed to keep half of it
and publishers agreed to keep half of it — it would make a dent, but
it wouldn’t cause them to go out of business.” According to The NPD
Group, iTunes overtook Wal-Mart this year as the top U.S. music
retailer.
-Chris W.
